Assoc. Prof. Lenore P. Dela Cruz of the Department of Community Development (DCD) was honored for her 30 years of service as a faculty, aside from several years as a contractual staff. Department of Social Work (DSW) faculty members Assoc. Prof. Yolanda G. Ealdama and Asst. Prof. Rosalie T. Quilicol were awarded for their 15 years of service in the College.

Dela Cruz finished her BS in Community Development (cum laude) and MA in Education both from UP Diliman (UPD). She is presently the director of the UPD Office of Extension Coordination (OEC).

Ealdama is the current DSW chairperson. She has a BS in Social Work and Diploma in Women and Development both from CSWCD and an MA in Social Development from the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, The Netherlands, now a component of the Erasmus University. Quilicol earned her BS and MA in Social Work both from CSWCD.

“I started working in CSWCD in 1979, then in 1981 I became a training assistant in the Continuing Education Program. Former dean Amaryllis T. Torres asked me to try teaching but I was busy then with community works helping farmers in Central Luzon and I left the college for a while. I came back in 1988 and started teaching in DCD,” Dela Cruz said as the honorees’ representative. “My challenge to all present in this ceremony is to continue what the college had initiated as an institution, what we represent. May your years of service to the college and community be the launching place of glory and love (luwalhati’t pagsinta) of your memorable lives,” she said in the vernacular.

UP Staff Chorale serenading the audience

In her opening remarks, Dean Sylvia E. Claudio cited late CSWCD Prof. Flora Ransang as “the mother of Nik (Lorenzo Bonifacio), the youngest person memorialized in the Bantayog ng mga Bayani.” There are two kinds of heroes, she continued, “those who died young and those who live long. It is much difficult for the latter because they have to live a life of integrity that can be emulated by others.”

Other events for the whole week were online launching of Philippine Journal of Social Development Volume 11 2019 with the theme “Human Rights from the Margins” through the link http://cswcd.upd.edu.ph/index.php/2019/02/25/philippine-journal-of-social-development-volume-11-2019/ (Feb. 26); forums on “martial Law in Mindanao” (Feb. 26), “women’s issues” (Feb. 27) and “lowering of the age of criminal liability (Feb. 28); film showing of documentaries and feature films (Feb. 28); and a night of solidarity and performances (Feb. 27). – Text and images by Benito V. Sanvictores Jr.